I’ve been avoiding you. Nothing personal, I just have been avoiding writing in general, which means my Creativity Journal has been neglected. I’m pretty embarrassed about that, and I feel guilty. I’m sorry.

I don’t need or want to go into details about why I haven’t written in so long, so I’ll just leave it at a blanket statement: I haven’t felt like it. I’ve been feeling like it’s a losing battle to write anything, like I should just concentrate on doing my job and spending time with my family. I haven’t wanted to write, despite desperately wanting to finish my “Chesterfield Gray” story. I have been been doing everything except writing, in fact.

“Get used to it.” I can hear you now, and you’re right. If I’m going to make it, I need to write every day, whether I want to or not. Writing must be a habit that burns so fiercely that I need to release it every day or face the danger of being consumed by it. If I don’t do that, I don’t deserve to be called a writer, and I don’t deserve to be published.

The whiner in me says, “It’s a lot easier when you don’t have to work 40+ hours per week and still save time for your family.” True, but that’s just an excuse. The key question is whether I would still be avoiding writing if I had all the money I needed. I really don’t know, and I don’t expect to find out any time soon.

Enough grousing. Onward.

The most significant creative event that happened since I last made a journal entry is that I sat in with Sydney Warner’s band at a club called Balls Sports Bar on Colfax and Simms. I know one of the sidemen through a mutual friend, and he invited me to come down and play with them. I thought I would only be playing a couple of tunes, but I wound up sitting in two full sets with them. Thanks to Sydney, Franco and the rest of the band for letting me play the blues with them!

Last weekend, I purchased a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller for my Cyber-Twin. I spent part of the day learning how to program, and part of the next couple of days tweaking it to make it work correctly with the amp. Thanks to Harrier and RVWinkle at the Fender Discussion Page for the help in getting it straightened out. Now all I have to do is personalize the patch setups for my own gigging style. (I have a gigging style? Wow!)